A small port on or near the North Coast. In the Hikayat Pochut Muhamat: ‘The description of this journey is most graphic. The little army rests for a time in Kuala Batee and Pochut Muhamat does all he can to convert this small port to a mart of importance.‘
Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Kuala Batee
Kuala Batee is a settlement in Pidie that figures in The Achehnese Vol. I as the seat of a branch of the Achehnese royal family notoriously at odds with the Sultan’s court. Snouck Hurgronje introduces it in his survey of the political fragments of pre-Dutch Acheh in order to illustrate how weak the sultanate’s control had become over its own kinsmen.
A Royal Branch at Odds with the Court
Snouck records that “in Kuala Batee (Pidie) there was settled in recent times a branch of the royal family which was on bad terms with the Sultan.” These tuankus — royal princes bearing the Achehnese title tuanku — “had been repeatedly declared outlaws by the latter on account of piracies committed even on Achehnese prahus and to the detriment” of fellow Achehnese subjects. The very fact that the Sultan could only declare them outlaws, rather than suppress them, testifies to the impotence of the central authority that Snouck stresses throughout the chapter.
The piratical Tuankus Usen and Abdomajet of Kuala Batee are the most prominent members of this branch mentioned in Vol. I. Snouck remarks that, “in spite of the critical position of the country,” and although ties of blood were strengthened by marriage alliances — “for example the Sultan has wedded a daughter of Tuanku Abdomajet” — “the family of Kuala Batee is on bad terms with the court.” Even their eventual submission to the Gompeuni (Dutch Government) is not, in his view, the cause of the estrangement, since other royal kinsmen such as Tuanku Asem (Hashim) and his former ward “are on terms of mutual distrust” without having submitted.
Significance
Kuala Batee thus illustrates two of the major themes of Snouck’s Vol. I: the disintegration of sultanate authority over its own relatives, and the readiness of dissident Achehnese princes to take to piracy even against their own people. Its geographical position in Pidie, the east-coast region with a long tradition of strong kawom (tribal) organisation, made it a natural base for such semi-independent princely enterprise.
See Also
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.